50 Recipes from a 1950s Housewife- A Cultivated Nest (2024)

FAQs

What did 1950s housewives cook? ›

Dad grew up eating his mother's Russian shtetl cuisine of borscht, pulverized potatoes, and desiccated meat, so he thought his wife's cooking was wildly exotic: an elegant relish tray with celery, carrots, and olives on ice; chicken à la king; green bean casserole made with Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup; instant ...

Starting in the 1950s, this idea of the “housewife” came to a forefront within society. The perfect housewife was one who was able to cook, clean, bear children, raise the children, and be able to please her husband by having dinner on the table by the time he came home from his corporate job.

After Word War II, women - who had been called upon to work in factories and farms to support the war effort - gradually trickled back to the kitchen sink. Until the 1950s it was common for bored housewives to buy amphetamine-based drugs from the chemists.

1950s Lunches

So, what did people eat for lunch in the 1950s? In many cases, it was a pared-down version of dinner, consisting of meat, sides and veggies. Sandwiches were also popular, particularly bologna, as were soups packed in a thermos.

10 For example, during the 1950s and 1960s, Dr Nathan Rickels theorised and diagnosed the 'angry woman syndrome' as a behavioural disturbance among women who expressed their frustrations via conventionally 'masculine' traits such as swearing, anger, jealousy or promiscuity.

Not only did the women of the 1950s have to make exciting meals, ensure their children are well behaved without disciplining them excessively, keep their home smelling lemon fresh and always look appealing for their husbands, they had to make it all look easy.

The image of American women in the 1950s was heavily shaped by popular culture: the ideal suburban housewife who cared for the home and children appeared frequently in women's magazines, in the movies and on television.

This helped normalize amphetamine use—and when the war was over, civilian use skyrocketed. This time, though, it wasn't soldiers who took amphetamines. It was their wives. Researchers had known for decades that amphetamines suppress appetite, but specific formulations for weight loss only took off after World War II.

1950s Housewife clothing

The most popular style of dress has to be the button-down shirtwaist dress. This style of dress was initially designed in the 1900s to mimic the utilitarian design of a man's shirt.

How did husbands treat their wives in the 50s? ›

A typical day for married men in 1950 was for their wives to wait on them and make their lives easy for them. If men held full-time jobs, they were considered amazing husbands. If they even “babysat” their own child, they were revered. Housewives' jobs were to wait on their husbands and children, hand and foot.

Not only did the women of the 1950s have to make exciting meals, ensure their children are well behaved without disciplining them excessively, keep their home smelling lemon fresh and always look appealing for their husbands, they had to make it all look easy. But of course, it wasn't.

"Government cheese," canned tuna, white bread, canned vegetables, mayonnaise, boxed cake and biscuit mixes, and yes, gelatin and Cool Whip were what poor people ate. Wealthier people ate "real" food - a trend that continues today.

But as Stephanie Coontz demonstrated Sunday in the New York Times , this wasn't so. In fact, the misogyny of the era was far more wholesale than that. Women were expected to stay home and look after children, and their reward for doing that was to be told that they were “vipers” who did a terrible job.

So much so that highly processed foods effectively “liberated” American housewives in the 1950s, according to the National Women's History Museum. At the time, families were flocking to the suburbs, moving en masse into homes outfitted with electric appliances that helped streamline the food prep and cooking processes.